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Top Korean Bitcoin Exchange Bithumb Loses More Than $30 Million in Hack

June 20, Bithumb, one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea has been hacked. According to the local news agency Yonhap, the hacking attack took place from Tuesday night till Wednesday dawn and an estimated 35 billion won (US$31.5 million) worth of virtual currency were stolen.Due to the safety issues, the exchange is transferring all the digital assets to a cold wallet and changing its wallet system. Bithumb has also suspended all its services at present, including coin deposit and withdrawal.

Customers have been warned not to deposit any fund into Bithumb wallet addresses for the time being, as no deposit can be completed until all the wallet system has been upgraded. The exchange did not give an exact service-restart time, users need to keep an eye on its notification.

It was the second hacking attack in 10 days against South Korea-based cryptocurrency exchanges. Earlier this month, a minor exchange Coinrail has also been hacked and lost estimated 40 billion won worth of coins. Some observers believes that news sent the bitcoin price to its lowest in two months.

This time, although bitcoin fell from $6,718.35 to $6,561.79 after Bithumb’s hacking attack tweets, the price started rebounding rapidly. Bitcoin now traded at $6,624.58 according to CoinDesk’s bitcoin price index which is essentially flat compare to the previous price before the attack.

Bithumb has made a commitment of covering all losses which makes their costumers and other crypto investors feel much more reassuring. $30 million is not a small amount, Bithumb’s initiative shows the cryptocurrency community is getting more mature and stronger.

Charlie Lee, founder of Litecoin also post a tweet to praise Bithumb for its right measures, he has also advised crypto investors to withdraw their coins straightly after trading to avoid risk.